Match Day gives some Rockford med students their dream slot

ROCKFORD — Rosalynd Mincy’s hands trembled as she opened the envelope that contained details about the next step in her medical career.

Inside: Where everyone's going

Melissa Westphal

ROCKFORD — Rosalynd Mincy’s hands trembled as she opened the envelope that contained details about the next step in her medical career.

She dissolved into tears upon learning that she had been matched with her top-choice residency program in pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio.

The tears were happy tears, and her excitement made others in the crowd equally emotional Friday at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford.

“I’m an emotional person, but I didn’t think I’d get so emotional,” Mincy said. “I always wanted to be a doctor. I’m from Cincinnati, that’s my hometown. It’s been my dream since I was a child to work at that hospital.”

Mincy was one of 49 graduating students who participated in Match Day, a tradition repeated simultaneously at 126 medical schools across the country.

Rockford students matched in 15 medical specialties, including family medicine, internal medicine, emergency medicine and plastic surgery. Residencies represent their next three to six years of training.

Students interviewed with residency program officials during the past few months and then ranked their top program choices. Program officials did the same for the students; a computer matched them up.

After reading their matches aloud, the students used pushpins on an oversized U.S. map to mark the locations of their residencies. There were clusters of pins on places like Peoria and Chicago in Illinois, where 15 of the students will do their residency work.

Each student also contributed $5 to a jar before reading their matches aloud at a podium in front of relatives, friends and college staff and faculty. The last person called — Kandace Walker of Carthage — took home the money pot.

Walker matched with a pediatrics program at Children’s Mercy Hospitals & Clinics in Kansas City, Mo.

Several students brought their significant others and parents to the podium to announce their matches. The ceremony was broadcast online, so some students waved and acknowledged relatives tuning in from other countries.

Several students will stay in Illinois for their residencies, but matches were made for programs in 21 states. Thirty-five percent of the class will enter primary-care medical fields like family medicine and pediatrics.